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I’ve been a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association since 1993. Decades later, I remain active because of the many friendships I formed and have with truly interesting and engaging people.

Think about it. To persist and excel as a professional speaker demands a deep inner motivation. Invariably, the gateway into the speaking business is a heartfelt desire to share the lessons and experiences of one’s failures, successes, and events so others can be better. Now surround yourself with a roomful of people like that, and you get a sense of why my membership matters to me.

For many years, Carolyn Quintin, the amazingly successful Dean of the NSA Central Florida Speakers Academy, has been booking me as the opening speaker for the Academy. It’s an honor.

Every NSACF Speaker Academy attendee walks away with a 2-word purpose statement thanks to using ONPURPOSE.me. To be present when people recognize who they are and why they’re here is pure delight. From the front of the room I see them lift their eyes from their smartphones as a refreshment of life comes washing over them.

Next, because we’re in the context of being paid professional speakers, they also write their Vision, Missions, and Values so their speaking career and accompanying business model are more deeply aligned with who they are and how they want to be an influence in the world. It is their first step toward being an on-purpose person in creation.

This is why I do what I do. Yes, speaking, training, coaching, and consulting engagements help me pay the bills and grow the business. In the end, however, there’s nothing like that feeling of seeing the light switch go on in the heart and mind of another person.

Every person that knows his or her 2-word purpose and begins the steps or commits to being on-purpose is a fulfillment of their highest calling and dignity as a human. They turn a disadvantage into an advantage.

And for me, I get to be on-purpose serving others as they are learning what it means to be on-purpose for them. We’re respectively increasing one another’s wealth by profiting our souls and each other. Bliss!

What happens when you gather with a room full of National Speakers Association Professional Members and host a panel of Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) and Council of Peers Award for Excellence (CPAE) Hall of Fame Speakers?

Wow! The Central Florida Chapter of NSA (#nsacf) Distinguished Members provided sage advice, sound wisdom, and practical takeaways for all those in attendance. As the Chapter VP of Programs, I hold the honor of moderating this panel on the Spirit of Cavett (Robert) Day.

I asked the following questions:

1. Describe your speaker business model: keynote speaker, trainer, coach, consultant. Is speaking your primary income or does speaking open the door to your primary income as a marketing method?
2. What insight/event was the turning point for you when you realized speaking could be a profit-making part of your business model? In other words, when did you take speaking seriously enough to want to master the craft?
3. From that turning point forward, how has membership in NSA/NSACF contributed to your business growth and development?
4. If you were starting your business over today, what would you do differently to begin generating revenue sooner?
5. What’s one piece of advice, idea, or improvement to your business that helped you grow your speaking business to the point where you qualified to become a CSP?
6. Where do you see the future of the speaking business headed, and how are you meeting it more head-on within your business model?

What’s evident from my peer professional speakers is there are as many career path and business models as there are speakers. For all that diversity there was unity on the power of peer-relationship to accelerate their learning and business growth. It can be a lonely profession otherwise as a keynote speaker, trainer, coach, consultant, or seminar leader.

Saturday, August 17, 2019 • Sheraton Tampa Brandon Hotel • visitors are welcome to chapter meetings: register and pay online at www. nsacentralflorida.com

Peter Winick is one smart and capable guy whose message and work I’ve followed for years. He’s a thought leader for thought leaders.

Recently, Peter interviewed me about book publishing and how to articulate your message so your audience wants to read what you write … and you get to sell more books, too! Listen in to this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership where Peter and I talk about being on-purpose, publishing, and what it means to be a thought leader.

Enjoy this podcast interview with CB Bowman of MEECO Leadership Development and The Associate of Corporate Executive Coaches.

What I really love about this interview with CB is her curiosity and sense of wonder as she’s listening and learning. Here’s a master executive coach with an open mind and a willing spirit to engage fresh ideas and integrate them rapidly. Chief Leadership Officer^® is on the edge for most corporate executives and CEOs. CB was hungry to explore, eager to assimilate, and excited to discover new frontiers of corporate executive leadership.

Feel free to drop a comment or question below. I hope this casual yet thought-rich interview serves you well.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

What I really love about this video interview with CB is her curiosity and sense of wonder as she’s listening and learning. Here’s a master executive coach with an open mind and a willing spirit to engage fresh ideas and integrate them rapidly. Chief Leadership Officer^® is on the edge for most corporate executives and CEOs. CB was hungry to explore, eager to assimilate, and excited to discover new frontiers of corporate executive leadership.

CB Bowman is the inspirational founder of MEECO Leadership Development and The Associate of Corporate Executive Coaches.

We live in the entertainment economy.

We’re so immersed in it that we’re like fish who don’t realize they’re swimming in water.

We’re in the midst of the entertainment awards season. And some people are highly interested in the outcome of a particular Big Game this upcoming Sunday. Admittedly, I am usually one of those taking in the game, commercials, and halftime show. Pro football is my sports distraction of choice.

I invite you to breathe the fresh air of a life lived more thoughtfully and fully alive. Think of this message as CPR for the soul.

Be sure to invest yourself in the matters of life that matter the most.

Go more deeply into the discovery of knowing who you are, how you were designed, and the difference your life can make in the world of the “happily distracted” who are filled but unfulfilled.

Distractions abound in an ADHD-paced schedule and life. Distractions prevent us from getting to clarity and building lives of maturity, depth, and greater contribution.

When distractions become our way of life, the way of our life is passing us by.

How many times have you said, “I just want to be happy”? Perhaps you’ve said it about your children, too.

To be happy is certainly a worthy emotional state.

Image via Wikipedia

Dare I ask …

• Is happiness the true gold standard for the ideal emotional state?
• Can we always be happy?
• Are we entitled to happiness?

Yes, I believe in the book title from the Minirth Meier New Life Clinic, Happiness is a Choice. I’m happy to be happy!

Perhaps my age is showing with my questions (and answer). Hopefully, I’m not a cynic, but a keen observer of the human condition. The “pursuit of happiness” as we understand and apply it in the 21st Century may actually not be in our long-term best interest.

Too often the pursuit of happiness is the unhealthy avoidance of reality.

Denial and distraction are a dangerous one-two combination that takes us down an unhealthy path of avoidance.

Happiness, for all its good as it is in use today, is a fleeting, temporary, or surface emotion. Happiness is circumstantial and has the effect of drug tolerance. What it takes to makes us happy tends to get ramped up over time. We need more and bigger to satisfy our happiness quotient.

The more enduring emotions are love, joy, and peace because they are attitudes of choice—not circumstances. The matter becomes not what can I do to be happy, but can I be at peace regardless of my circumstances.

Viktor Frankl in his book Man’s Search For Meaning profoundly observed that those who survived in Nazi prison camps had a compelling reason and will to live. In essence, they made peace with their circumstances and captors. They lived until another day because they had a purpose, a reason for being.

Pursuing your purpose (instead of happiness) opens the back door to the prosperous and joyful life of being more at peace. Get off the “happy drug” of distractions.

Stop paying the high price of avoiding being the true you.

Frankly, we need you to be more of you. You’re the only one who can be you.

Have you ever tried to break a habit?

At best, it is an awkward experience because we take ourselves off of “autopilot” and go into a “manual” mode. Things we didn’t think about … now we do. And when it comes to breaking bad habits, the bad habit can preoccupy our thinking. As a result of this heightened tension, our discomfort is more apparent to us.

Athletes learn to expect that performance may get worse before it gets better when they’re creating a new habit. Progress, not perfection, is the healthy standard of measure. Staying optimistic can be difficult in the midst of change. Remaining positive, however, is a matter of choice. Decide to stay upbeat and you will! You’ll also benefit by focusing on learning instead of “loss.”

Try the AAA Method: AAA = Awareness + Alternatives + Act on it!

Awareness, developing alternatives, and acting upon your better/best intentions (AAA) is preventive medicine for the sanity of the soul.

Habits are defined as acquired behaviors.

The implication here is that if we acquire new habits, then we can also dispose of and replace bad ones. Now there’s hope!

It’s easy to imagine our life with the benefits of our new habits. Here are some examples:

• Smoking cessation brings savings of money; no smoky smelling breath, clothes, car, and home; and better health.
• Getting to a healthier weight resolves or mitigates a host of weight-related conditions and diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Joints and backs with less weight are happier and less creaky.
• Centering prayer, meditation, or deep breathing can reduce stress and free the mind to think more clearly.
• Tracking your spending helps you plug wasteful expenditures and impulsive buys. You can increase your savings.

Envisioning new life is easy. Making it happen is not so easy!

The underlying premise is that we’re capable of far more than we understand or we will push ourselves. That’s why so many people turn to coaches to assist them for accountability as well as training.

Your self talk matters.

If you identify yourself with words like failure, slob, worthless, insignificant, wasteful or stupid, then you’re pronouncing lies into your present and carrying them into your future. To what benefit is this? Now that you’re Aware—Stop!

Come up with a list of Alternatives for your identity: successful, neat, worthy, significant, thrifty, and smart.

Now Act on them. If you don’t act on them then they’ll never develop and be fully assimilated in your life. This is the essence of personal leadership—the ability to turn it around by yourself or by having the humility to get the help you need.

Purpose and Passion

Personal motivation—a compelling reason, a why, a purpose—combined with a willingness to pay the price—passion—defines the outcome. That said, extraordinary moments of truth emerge in the midst of the ordinary that test our purpose against our progress. Positive thoughts may get us started but will they sustain us? We choose!

No matter the outcome, you’re learning about you!

Knowledge is powerful when put to good use, such as your self talk. So even if you don’t accomplish what you set out to do, you’re learning something new about yourself. Use your Awareness to develop an Alternative strategy that you Act upon (The AAA Method).

Moments of truth appear in our self talk: good and bad. Let’s not go down the self-deceptive path of mindless affirmations, positive talk, or positive mental attitude. Be real with yourself.

Get to the guts of the matter, the real inner conversation. The ones haunted by doubt, fear, anger, discouragement, disappointment, and hopelessness. Be equipped to choose to win. This is why I encourage you to put the AAA Method to work when your self talk becomes self-defeating.

It is like there’s a debate team living inside you. Who will win?

How’s your self talk coming along? Use the AAA Method to intervene on behalf of your new, better habit. You’ll be on-purpose and better for it.